


Five Times Micah Used His Powers For Someone Else

by Nope



Series: Five Times Micah [3]
Category: Heroes (TV)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-10-23
Updated: 2007-10-23
Packaged: 2018-10-25 01:58:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10754373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nope/pseuds/Nope
Summary: Exactly what it says on the tin.





	Five Times Micah Used His Powers For Someone Else

**1\. Camera. Niki.**  
  
People sometimes do bad things for good reasons, Micah knows. It doesn't make the bad things any better, though. It doesn't make them feel right.  
  
But his mom is perched on the edge of the bed in her dressing gown, pulled in on herself, arms wrapped around and hair down, covering her face. Choking on sounds, on little cough-sobs. And he doesn't know what to do. Parents are supposed to make their kids better, not the other way around. So he just stands there, in the doorway, handle still gripped tight in his hand.  
  
(Much later, he will wonder if this is what it feels like for Hiro, every second heavy, crystallized.)  
  
Eventually Niki looks up. Quickly wipes her cheeks dry. Forces a smile (he can always tell when they're fake). Says, trying for cheer, "Hey, honey. You okay?"  
  
"Yeah." He nods, just a little. "Are you?"  
  
She wipes her cheek with her hand again. "The -- My computer. I think I broke it. It won't start up at all. It's." Smiles (fake fake fake). "It's no big deal."  
  
Safer on the internet than off, he thinks. He takes a deep breath, lets it out.  
  
"You need to get ready for scho--" She starts.  
  
"I can fix it. The computer," he explains. "I think I can fix it."  
  
When she says "my little genius" her smile is perfectly genuine and that almost, almost, makes up for the cold twist in his belly.  
  
  
  
 **2\. Votes. Candice.**  
  
Micah could get used to limousines. Maybe that's the worst of it, the way they get into things, the way they are nice, even when they're scary. And they are scary.  
  
"Don't look so gloomy," Candice says.  
  
(He knows this is real. Candice might be good, but he bets she doesn't know what cars sound like, not engine sound, but car sound. There are microchips in everything, these days. On-board navigation and he knows exactly where he is, but what good does it do him?)  
  
"Don't look so gloomy," Candice says. "Today's a good day. What you do here will make the world a better place."  
  
"For who?"  
  
"For everybody," she says, like, duh. Like it should be obvious, when it isn't anything close.  
  
"I just want to go home." A proper home, with mom and dad and no creepy old guys or thugs or webcam shows or fights. Just the good kind of secrets, because 'my dad walks through walls and my mom can knock you through them' is all kinds of cool.  
  
"You can go home when you're done," Candice says, like she believes it. She's good at illusion. He wonders whose face she's smiling at him with. Is it hers? Copied from some magazine, from someone in the street? "Mister Linderman will be ever so proud of you. He might even make you one of his special pot pies. Wouldn't that be nice?"  
  
"Yeah," Micah says. "Pot pies of evil."  
  
Candice chuckles, grins, ruffles his hair. "You're a great kid."  
  
His eyes hurt. He turns his head away, blinks away the blur until he can clearly see her dark reflection in window. She's still smiling, munching chips. Doesn't look scary at all, which just makes her more scary. That's the worst of it.  
  
Micah pretends he believes they'll let him go and, when he presses his fingers to the tinted glass, he can hear New York whispering, closer and closer.  
  
  
  
 **3\. Hospital. Daniel.**  
  
The world should just stop when bad things happen. Everything shouldn't just keep on going. Or it should, absolutely everything should, not just all the rest, but it doesn't, and it can't, and it won't, no matter how hard you try to fix it, how long or how hard you press your hand against him until he, until the, until it's cold and.  
  
You've heard your mom cry too many times.  
  
(He went away before. He went away before and it hurt and he came back and that hurt too, but he came back. He came back. She went and she came back. They leave you but they come back. They always come back. Why can't he come back now? Please. Oh, please.)  
  
There are arguments. She keeps her voice low. You don't. What do you care? You're only eleven. Not even that yet. Ten and change. And this is the wrong sort of change. He was a hero, and heroes aren't supposed to. You'd won. You'd escaped the bad guy. You'd.  
  
("It won't work."  
  
"Yes it will.")  
  
But you're still not safe. Still not. Everything keeps going around you. All those connections. All those falling dominos. Please, she says. Please, Micah. We have to go. We have to  
  
(come back come back don't)  
  
go. We have to.  
  
You have to. You're smart. You understand. You have to. So you press your hand against the hospital's computer and you're a good boy, a brave boy, mommy's little genius, and you don't scream or shout or punch or kick or cry until you're sick (although you have, you will). You just slide into the cool black and you make it so D. L. Hawkins never existed and it's the worst, the absolute worst thing you have ever done.  
  
  
  
 **4\. Cable. Damon.**  
  
There are rules. Behaviors. Don't be too smart, don't be too stupid, stand out just enough that you don't stand out at all. Don't answer back. Be polite. Be good. Obey the rules.  
  
Micah wants to wish Monica good luck, but no one else does. She did have it though. The in charge look. The confidence of someone special.  
  
He's special too, except right now he's the sort of special that means waking up drenched and to insults. But there are rules to this too. Complex, mercurial things, but rules. Your side, my side, your family, mine. A guest in the house, playing by guest rules.  
  
("It's not real. It's just acting.")  
  
It wasn't about wanting to. He didn't. Of course, he didn't. He'd said, hadn't he? He'd keep them secret. Keep them safe. No powers. So there was that, but there was also having to live in this house with these people, with Nana and Monica and--  
  
"Whatchu looking at?"  
  
"Nothing. It's just..." He didn't want to. Of course not. But there were rules to this too. Give the punters what they want and they were yours. Be nice (when you're being scary). "I think I know a way to get you pay-per-view."  
  
Gotcha.  
  
  
  
 **5\. Future. Sylar.**  
  
Molly called him the boogeyman, Micah remembers in a detached sort of way. It's just another fact on the heap. Like the way his palms are sweaty. The way it's hard to breathe. The way mom's lying, so very still. The way the boogeyman talks. The stubble. The scars. Sylar, supplies the heap. His name is Sylar.  
  
And, also: 'You seem to be in mortal peril. Would you like to * run? * cry? * stand frozen on the spot and hope you look brave and that he doesn't realize pretty much everything he's saying is going in one ear and out the other.'  
  
(Not that Micah ever needs the assistance, not there where things can be undeleted, retrieved even from killfiles. Unlike here.)  
  
Sylar is saying something. "--Linderman's files, I knew you were the one. You talk to things. You fix them."  
  
"Machines," Micah says. Begs. Some hero. "It only works on machines." He needs a plan. He's supposed to be a genius, but it's all a bit garbage in, garbage out right now. "It only works on machines," he repeats.  
  
Sylar presses down harder, just a little harder, on Niki's neck.  
  
"Don't give me that, kid. Your cousin talked. He said you gave the girl powers."  
  
"What? No." Micah shakes his head, again, hard. "That was-- That was coincidence. It runs in the family!"  
  
"You fixed her," Sylar says, "and you can fix me."  
  
He can't. Of course he can't. Stupid Linderman. Casino and rubble and still not enough. Still a trail, the logs of their lives, pointing the way, pointing here. Nothing's ever permanently deleted. Except people. He needs a plan. He needs something.  
  
(The TV whines. The microwave hums. The fridge ticks. Nothing in reach of his hands, but his feet touch his socks, his socks his shoes, his shoes the floor and the floor touches them and if he stretches, if he really, really stretches--)  
  
Sylar presses down harder, smirks wider.  
  
"All right!" Micah yells. "All right. Don't hurt her. I'll do it -- I'll fix it. I'll fix you!"  
  
He does.


End file.
